River must’ve turned on his microphone.
This was it.
I shifted my weight and held my cane with my other hand as I pinned my stare to the screen. No more than ten seconds ticked by before I heard Noa’s breathless voice filtering through.
“Where the fuck is it?” he panted irritably.
I drew a deep breath and felt admittedly a bit frazzled all of a sudden. If we heard Noa on the speaker, it meant River was right there somewhere. Lurking, waiting, listening. While Noa had no idea.
“Sweet Jesus, this is hot,” Colt whispered.
Oh, I wanted to see my boy. He had to be wet from the rain by now. With mud and dirt on his sneakers and clothes.
A low growl rumbled from the speaker, shooting my pulse through the roof. Had Noa heard—yeah, he had. He looked around frantically, the camera moving too fast for me to catch anything other than a black-and-white blur.
“Who’s out there?” Noa demanded. “I fucking swear!”
I grinned.
Anger, always his go-to emotion. It was a good fucking thing that River had opted for the inflatable costume underneath the clown gear because my boy was gonna get violent. And maybe River had already thought of that.
Then we heard River’s voice, a dark, wheezing hiss. “Can I help you with anything, child?”
Noa screamed at the top of his lungs. The screen flashed with static before the camera landed on River, who stood there next to a tree in his clown gear…holding a red balloon.
Fucking hell, my heart was pounding. How was Noa even alive?
The Daddy heart took a hard blow when all I heard was Noa trying to recover. He choked down a sob that was already escaping him, and he groaned and panted heavily.
River cocked his head and started moving closer to Noa, who shouted out “No!” before he groaned again, in frustration this time, and cursed. “You fucker! Fucking clown motherfuckers! I’m gonna get that fucking balloon and knee you in the crotch, okay?! God!”
He lured out the Sadist in me next, with his tiny little whimpers and angry snarls. The play was fucking with his head. He was so torn between rage and fear. What I wouldn’t give to be out there and watching this with my own eyes.
River came to a stop, mere feet away, and tied the balloon to a branch. He didn’t say a word.
He looked like a complete nightmare. The stripey red hair matted from the rain, the poorly applied makeup that gave him a ghostly, dirty pallor, and the giant suit in bright colors.
Noa had evidently summoned the guts he needed, because he walked toward River quickly—only to come to a screeching halt when River flinched forward and roared viciously in his face.
“Holy fuck,” Colt coughed.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
Noa stumbled backward with a cry, and then he yelled out, “Yellow!”
My heart stopped. But my legs tried to move forward. I almost stumbled, but I had to get out there right fucking now and—
“Wait.” Colt got a grip on my bicep and pulled me back.
“I’m easing off, kid,” I heard River say. “Take a deep breath.”
I needed that reminder too. Worry had wound itself around my heart, holding it in a brutal grip, and I couldn’t unclench for the life of me.
“Who are you?” Noa croaked. He was still on the ground.
“It’s River. You wanna call it? I can get you back to your Daddy in three minutes.”
“No!” My boy started sobbing. It fucking broke me. “Now I’m mad I said yellow!”
Wh…what?
“So say green,” River replied. “We can pick up right where we left off, I promise you.”
Judging by how the camera went up and down really fast, he had to be nodding. “I’m green,” he cried. “Green, Daddy!”
The relief smacked into my chest, and I covered my mouth with my hand as my eyes welled up. Oh, thank fucking God. “Jesus Christ,” I rasped. “Thank fuck, thank fuck.”
“We’re all gonna need aftercare after this.” Colt clapped me on the back.
True to his word, River got them back on track—fast. He pounced on Noa, who didn’t hesitate to throw his fists around. The camera became useless. They moved around too fast, so I paid more attention to the sound. And Noa sounded…off. Too far gone.
“River’s holdin’ back,” Colt noted quietly. “Not just because the kid’s tiny.”
I knew it. I tried to get a clearer image from the screen, but it was mostly static and erratic flashes.
“Noa’s too far gone,” I said, echoing my thought. I didn’t know if my boy had regressed further than what I would deem safe, or if the fear play had fucked with his head too much, but he was switching too quickly between laughter, sobbing, and shouting in anger.
Just a few seconds later, River faked his surrender with a labored, “You got me, you got me.”
In times like these, I was extra grateful for the friends I had—for the members of our community. I wouldn’t let just anyone push Noa to the extremes.